The above rendering wasn’t bad at all, and it received generous praise from the Bricktown Urban Design Committee during a presentation in June. But the project is also under the review of the Urban Renewal Authority. When Cathy O’Connor took over the Urban Renewal Authority under the umbrella of The Alliance of Economic Development, she reconfigured the staff so that includes some pretty innovative planners and more extensive design review assisted by international planning and architecture firm RTKL. Brooks was advised that while this was nice, it wasn’t ideal.

The original east Bricktown site plan.

Note that this plan called for a very long, continuous structure along Sheridan Avenue. And it also has a very long garage fronting to the north, facing The Hill neighborhood in Deep Deuce.

Original view of the east Bricktown garage from The Hill.

As mentioned in my story today, the new plans break up the site, resulting in two buildings:

East Bricktown, south elevation, west building.

The Steel Yard apartments, E Sheridan Avenue in Bricktown. Construction set to start next year.

With the complex broken into two buildings, the site plan now looks like this:

New east Bricktown site plan.

For folks at The Hill, this ought to be seen as a huge improvement, with far less view of the garage. The break-up the building also provides the opportunity to create what Brooks called a promenade. And he has a vision of what it might look like, thanks to a photo provided to him by Dustin Akers, a planning and development specialist with The Alliance. The photo from Bathesda, Maryland, excited Brooks and he’s very interested in creating a similar public space with east Bricktown:

Get ready for the future kids. I think you’re really going to like it.

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Steve Lackmeyer is a reporter and columnist who started his career at The Oklahoman in 1990. Since then, he has won numerous awards for his coverage, which included the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the city's Metropolitan...